


On Clarity And Promises

by AceyAnaheim



Category: The Originals (TV)
Genre: Gen, Klaus and Hope bond, Klaus is a good dad, baby hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 06:24:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12382701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceyAnaheim/pseuds/AceyAnaheim
Summary: Klaus talks to Hope while bottle feeding her.





	On Clarity And Promises

Klaus talks to Hope while he bottle-feeds her.  
While Elijah’s off brooding about Haley and Freya’s getting acquainted with the New Orleans’s nightlife, Klaus spends time getting acquainted with having his daughter in his arms again.  
There’s a rocking chair in the nursery. Klaus picked it out like he picked out everything else. The ice in his heart thaws a bit and floods him with regret when he realizes he should have let Haley have more a hand in the décor of their daughter’s room.  
It hardens when he remembers once more that she would have seen his daughter taken from him.  
It’s pretty much how his feelings for Haley go these days, freezing and thawing then freezing again like the glaciers that feed the oceans. But there’s nothing but sunshine when he holds Hope.  
Klaus sits on the rocking chair with his daughter and tells her stories.  
Or at least, they start off as stories with “Once upon a time, in a land far far away” and Klaus dips into tales that he’s collected over centuries of travels, into mythos and folklores that permeated every village he and his siblings visited. He weaves a tale that always, always, end with “happily ever after”  
Hope for her part seems enraptured by the lilt of her father’s voice and her eyes fixate on Klaus, widening and dropping with rising action and conclusion of every tale.  
She graces him with a smile after one such tale, and Klaus swears his heart may actually beat out his chest.  
It becomes his only refuge, as Elijah remains scorned and Rebekah remains a distant longing. Freya seems to notice and whether she wants to grant him some respite or grant herself some freedom after years of solitude and confinement, she starts leaving earlier and coming home later, delegating Hope’s care almost entirely to Klaus.  
It’s not like Klaus really begrudges her the latter, he understands all too well the euphoric feeling that comes from your oppressors-particularly when it’s an abusive parent- finally leaving your life and letting it be your own.  
And he certainly doesn’t begrudge time spent with his littlest wolf.  
Hope also seems pleased by this change of venue. She loves her Aunt Freya and smiles at Elijah for days but even now it’s her father who has her heart, just as she has his. She makes faces and kicks her legs in agreement when Klaus tells her about her uncle Elijah and how “grandly self-righteous” he is.  
Klaus finishes the diaper change and settles her on a hip, laughing mildly when she swats him on the side of the head to reposition herself.  
He can’t help but think she’s reprimanding him. The way Rebekah used to when he was “insufferable” even though it made her smile.  
“Very well I’ll amend he’s certainly got his qualities,” he says sitting back on the rocking chair. Hope grabs at his hands and plays with them as the bottle he’s prepared warms.  
The books say infants should drink their mother’s milk for at least the first six months. Klaus has thought of compelling a nursemaid, but then Hope spent the first three months of her life without her mother and according to her last doctor’s appointment she’s as healthy as could be.  
Perhaps she gets that from Haley, the girl was certainly a survivor.  
He pushes unpleasant thoughts of Haley and what her absence might mean for Hope and continues to speak, encouraged by the fact that Hope has no judgment or condemnation, nothing but love in her eyes.  
“Loyalty for one, have I ever told you about the time your uncle Elijah saved me from a couple of sirens?”  
That particular tale lasts as long as it takes for Hope to down a bottle and after recounting it, Klaus ponders a bit more on his brother and all that they’ve been through while holding Hope over one shoulder.  
A subconscious voice niggles he should have probably not worn a silk shirt while burping a baby. It’s quickly followed by the thought that he dammed an entire pack for his daughter, a shirt means nothing.  
“Your uncle Elijah has never left me,” Klaus says, speaking softly now as he rocks with Hope in the chair “And trust me when I say I am not an easy person to love, much less to stand by so stalwartly by, littlest wolf”  
He looks down after the admittance half-expecting an agreeing noise of some sort, even though Hope can’t really understand much less agree with what he’s saying.  
Hope for her part still, stares at him with nothing but love in her eyes.  
He starts telling her, even more, things after that, giving away secrets to his daughter that even Rebekah has never been privy to.  
He tells her about Elijah again, and the ever-present belief that he can be a better person, the frustration of never quite reaching that impossibly high bar. How he never feels like he’s earned Elijah’s support, become worthy of it in his eyes, no matter what he does.  
He tells her about the constant fear, the paranoia bred from millennia of betrayals, starting with his parents. He tells her of never feeling like anything was stable like nothing could be trusted.  
He promises her fervently she will never feel that.  
Hope, he decides will always know herself to unconditionally loved, perpetually cherished, and much, oh so much more than just “enough”  
Although Hope doesn’t speak the conversations never feel one-sided. She listens, Hope, with rapt attention with unconditional love and trust for the man she now knows to be her father.  
It’s in those moments that Klaus realizes with painful clarity he and all of his siblings once looked at their father the way Hope looks to him, trusting and full of love, at one point in their lives.  
It’s in those moments that he learns what it means to be a father-as he reflects on the things he’s done wrong, the things he needs to fix. He’s read books and thought of his parents and wondered if he could really be a good father but in those moments his job becomes incredibly simple.  
He needs to ensure that the love and unfettered trust his Hope has for him, is and remains well placed. And he swears that it will be. Always and forever.


End file.
